Despite Chris Skinner’s prediction, in an intelligently provocative recent piece, that 2007 was the year that Microsoft committed suicide, even he didn’t say the process would be quick – he predicted the company’s first lost to appear in 2012.
Meanwhile Microsoft continues to play a big role in banking and insurance, while its importance in capital markets beyond Excel on the trading desk is significant, but just how significant is subject to some debate.
Still, there’s no question the company’s plans are important to financial services firms, so I read through reports from a few leading predictors with interest.
Bink.nu from the
Netherlands
is one of the leading Microsoft watching sites. It is ""Watching Microsoft Like a Hawk, in its phrase. Its predictions consist of a list of product releases including IE 8 beta in the second half of 2008, perhaps a new host and integration server, and R2 of Commerce Server 2007?
Steve Bink’s site carries comments and links to other sites, such as Wictor Wilén, who comments on Microsoft and other topics of interest. He who expects IE 8 to be out by next Christmas.
Mary Jo Foley’s “All About Microsoft,” which appears on ZDNet is much more conversational with a list of 10 predictions, explained in a couple of paragraphs, based on inside sources. A few samples:
Windows 2007 is underway but nothing will be released in 2008
Business Intelligence will be available in some versions of Office
A Zune Phone
And she thinks that Bruce Chizen, Adobe's CEO who abruptly resigned in 2007, will join Microsoft to run the Expression team in the new year.
“As Microsoft watchers know, Adobe and Microsoft are competing head-to-head in the design-tool space. If the sources are right (and there are no non-competes in the way), Chizen may have a new roost to rule soon.”
She also has a long string of interesting comments coming off her blog. Steven Bink and Mary Jo Foley are definitely worth bookmarking if you want to keep up on Microsoft.
Chris M Skinner
Chris Skinner is best known as an independent commentator on the financial markets through his blog, TheFinanser.com, as author of the bestselling book Digital Bank, and Chair of the European networking forum the Financial Services Club. He has been voted one of the most influential people in banking by The Financial Brand (as well as one of the best blogs), a FinTech Titan (Next Bank), one of the Fintech Leaders you need to follow (City AM, Deluxe and Jax Finance), as well as one of the Top 40 most influential people in financial technology by the Wall Street Journal's Financial News. To learn more click here...
